New Year Special: Nathan Smale

Up close and personal interview with Intimate.ioCOO & Co-founder Nathan Smale.

BITCHIKKA: What got you interested in the blockchain technology?NATHAN: I became interested in blockchain when I realized it was a whole new era of digital interaction and realized the potential that it represented. It was the same excitement as when I first got exposed to the web in the 90’s.

I first got into crypto when my friend and now business partner, Reuben Coppa, first started rolling out bitcoin ATMs in Australia in 2013—lots has changed since then.

BC: What are your favorite cryptocurrencies?N: My favorite crypto is still bitcoin for the simple reason that it has done the best job introducing the public to blockchain and crypto. I’m excited to see more and more cryptos start to gain traction in their vertical.

BC: Do you have a favorite project aside from the one that you’re currently working on?N: Favorite projects are those driving real user adoption and solving actual problems. I love the work Coins.ph are doing to make crypto useful for the masses. I’m really keen to see the progress of crypto card solutions like TenX, TAP, and crypto.com to help users spend crypto offline. Trust Wallet is doing great to onboard users, we love those guys.

BC: What do you outside blockchain industry?N: Outside of crypto I am still just exploring this beautiful country and all of the amazing food it has to offer—I’ve only been living here 4 months but I love it here.

BC: If you were not working in the blockchain industry, where would you be?N: If I wasn’t in crypto, I would probably be working in the fields of connected cities (smart cities) and automation. I’ve always just loved technology and I want to build solutions to problems that people don’t know how to solve right now, so that would be my backup plan if I wasn’t in crypto today.

BC: How’s your 2018 and what was the highlight of your year?N: 2018 was hectic. We always joke about crypto time being 5x on gen pop time. The highlight for me was watching my team grow and continually rise to every challenge they tackled. They are amazing.

BC: What are you looking forward to this coming 2019?C: I’m hoping 2019 brings the start of mass scale adoption for consumers (hopefully via our intimate.io payment gateway). With that, hopefully, we’ll also see slow steady, sustainable growth in the value of the market relating to good technology and a growing user base.